Holy Jack in the Beanstalk Batman!

The third time really is a charm!

I've tried three years in a row to grow beans and I finally got both the variety and the timing correct.  Blue lake pole beans from Territorial Seed Company.  And now I have so many beans I don't know what to do!

So I put some up today; blanched and frozen per Bell's Blue Book of Canning.  But I've only just begun...

Salsa Time!

My Cougar Reds are red!

And my Golden Nuggets are golden!

It's time make salsa!

Outer Banks

When I die (at some hopefully distant time), most of my ashes will probably be scattered in the favorite places of my adopted home, the Pacific Northwest.  However, two handfuls should be saved for locations back east.  One of those spots, Wind Rock, a lookout off the Appalachia Trail in Virginia, may require my will to have a topo map included.  The other spot may or may not still exist, as it is a fragile barrier island off the coast of North Carolina.  Hatteras.  Only a few feet above sea level at its highest point and a few hundred yards wide at its narrowest, it is vulnerable to the ever changing whim of ocean and wind.

After a five-year hiatus, I finally was able to return to the Outer Banks.  Although we stayed on Bodie-Not-Really-An-Island, we did make it to Hatteras briefly.  Long enough to enjoy the empty beach even in what was still peak season for tourists.  

The beach is always changing.  My parents preceded the first stoplight when they started visiting in the sixties.  Now there is a five lane highway on Bodie Island.  Where there were once dunes, strip malls now exists.  Where there were once beach houses, now there is only the beach.  Inlets are dredged to keep them open and the sand is used to fill inlets cut by storms across narrow parts of the island.  The "natives," old North Carolina bankers with their distinct accent that is a mix of Judy Dench and Dolly Parton, are slowing going elsewhere or becoming assimilated.  And yet, the Outer Bankers are the same as they have been since they first appeared.  The only difference is that now people are there to try to force them to remain as they are currently.


But they won't.  I don't know if they'll exist by the time I'm ready to have my ashes scattered there.  But if history repeats itself, usually when one inlet closes, another one opens elsewhere.

The pictures above were all taken by my mother in January and February of this year.

American Bittern.

These pictures of the sunset were all taken by my mother on this most recent trip. 

Summer Nights

We are having the greatest summer weather.  The highs have been in the 80s, only occasionally flirting with the 90s.  It's hot enough for people around town to complain that it's hot without actually being terribly hot. 


In my last post, I said I didn't grow up with summer berries.  Another thing I didn't grow up with are 20 to 30 degree temperature differences between day and night.  Southern humidity keeps day and nighttime temperatures relatively constant, so you live with air conditioning or, if you are camping outside, lie sprawled out so that no part of your body is touching any other part.   Thus, when I moved here, I didn't know such basic survival skills for a drier, more Northern climate, such as always take a sweatshirt to the Fourth of July Fireworks display and what time of day is optimal for opening the windows.

We don't have air conditioning at our house here, as do most of the houses in our town.  So we rely on windows...shutting them in the morning and drawing the curtains then opening the house wide at just the right time of evening.  That time of evening when you can feel the first cool air of night, when your mood changes from the lethargy of midday to the anticipation of the night's secrets.

 

These pictures of flowers were taken when it was still early evening.

 

 

The view from behind our house.  Summer sunsets are hard to see through the trees.

 

Berry Patch

We like to graze at our house.  We have raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, pears, and plums in our yard so summer is really just a time of moving from one berry patch to the next.  Right now, it's raspberry season.  I did not grow up with berries in the yard (except for strawberries) and didn't know how great fresh fruit off the vine could be.  The raspberries and blackberries are used in pies, jam, smoothies, and eaten straight up.  The pears and plums are mostly dried.  This year, the raspberries are exceptionally large and juicy, probably owing to our cool, wet summer.  At least there is some reward for that!

 

Granted, the compost bin does not do much for this photo.

 

So many berries!

 Ok, these are just gratuitous shots of my Clematis and hollyhock...